As I Predicted – The Political Models Failed: A Comment on Poll-driven Micro-Simulations

I kind of Predicted it

My last article posted in June of 2016 talked about how in 2014 we will end up with a whole slew of new, sleek political models that will be able to “supposedly” predict the rise of Donald Trump. Tonight, as we watch the seemingly inevitable victory of Trump unfold, it’s becoming absolutely clear that the predictive and statistical poll-based models used by the most experienced professionals in the field are missing key components, or at minimum using bad training data.

Something is wrong with polling in general, the models that use the polling and the standard methodology in current use. In fact, up to 100 days prior to an election, [...]

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How & Why all the Political Prediction Models are Failing: Trump, Brexit & Feeling the Bern

Next year – suddenly out of nowhere – we’ll have a slew of new political prediction models all of them claiming to have been able to predict the Rise of Donald Trump, the Sanders Movement and even the recent exit of Britain from the European Union. Of course, all of them will be after the fact which has always been an easier thing to accomplish – and in the next cycle we’ll throw them all out and go back to the standard models that assume that most people will vote the way that they’re expected to vote under normal circumstances.

We’re talking about some major models breaking down in the face of unexpected changes using standard [...]

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